Vagaries

IT WAS a picture that launched a hundred searches in the web, only to find an interesting story in my own blog.

That was that of Mabalacat City Mayor Marino “Boking” Morales at his best oratorical pose addressing his supporters prior to filing his certificate of candidacy. Which he withdrew days later.

What caught the eye of readers was the dominant titan of Mabalacat politics for over two decades, uncharacteristically dwarfed by the bold brass inscription “DELFIN S. LEE BLDG.” on the façade of city hall.

Did we see some augury for Boking there that piqued our curiosity? No, we just suddenly missed Delfin Lee. Hence, this reminiscence from a 2009 feature headlined San Delfin de Xevera

THERE MAY be no “Delfin” entered as yet in the Calendar of Saints of the Roman Catholic Church but already a San Delfin de Xevera is enshrined in the hearts of many Kapampangans.

Hear Mabalacat Mayor Marino “Boking” Morales speak of Delfin Lee and come to the conclusion that, indeed, the man – Delfin, not Boking – has met the full measure of miracles requisite to a canonization.

“Delfin Lee is the greatest miracle that has ever happened to my town. See how he transformed the howling wilderness of lahar that is Barangay Tabun, into the bustling, cosmopolitan community that is Xevera-Mabalacat,” the mayor said in awe.

“There is inherent goodness in his heart, so manifest in his willingness to invest, not only his material resources, but his very self in uplifting the dignity of his fellowmen, most especially the small people. When you come to think of it, isn’t that what sainthood is all about, the giving of self for others?”

On Delfin Lee, the very secular, even bohemian Boking suddenly turns theological! Isn’t this a miracle in itself?

On a purely secular level now is Pampanga 1^st District Rep. Carmelo “Tarzan” Lazatin speaking: “If there is one person that can help uplift the lives of Filipinos by solving the problem of informal settlers in the country, that will be Delfin Lee.”

The scion of Pampanga’s landed gentry could only gush in admiration: “I am also a developer but with what Delfin Lee did to Xevera, he upped the ante, making it a difficult challenge for us to emulate.”

In his column Etcetera in the weekly Banner, Emilio Sese-Cruz had this to say in the piece headlined “Only Xevera, only Delfin Lee,” to wit: “Delfin Lee never ceases to cause wonder. No, make that awe…This is one guy who has redefined the whole concept, and practice, of land development.

Where other developers simply build houses, Delfin Lee – ALONE – builds communities. Not just communities, mind you, but total communities not simply meeting the needs of the inhabitants, but respecting, if not uplifting, their very dignity.”

A tough act to follow indeed!

For no less than the United Nations recognized the Xevera projects as “the template for urban development” and Delfin Lee as “a developer who, through harmonious relationships among the private sector, government sector, and various non-government organizations, has come up with a sustainable project that will help decongest highly-urbanized areas.”

Of deeper appreciation for Delfin Lee’s vision, mission and initiatives than that stated in the UN citation is the fact that he built his templates upon virtual wastelands – Calibutbut in Bacolor which may not have been swamped in the lahar rampages but was not spared from the heavy ashfall of the Mt. Pinatubo eruptions, and now, Tabun in Mabalacat which – true to its Kapampangan name – was indeed buried in lahar. A missionary spirit obtains in Delfin Lee there, treading – so to speak – where even angels feared to tread. So how many missionaries have become saints?   

A church builder, Delfin Lee is too – the place of worship ever at the center of the communities he builds: Sanctuario de San Miguel in Xevera-Bacolor, and Sanctuario de San Angelo in Xevera-Mabalacat, which immediately upon completion of construction are turned over to Mother Church, with deeds of donation to the Archdiocese of San Fernando (Pampanga).

In early medieval times, Delfin Lee’s church-building efforts would have easily merited a cardinal’s hat for him, and a sure beatification.

That’s too far-off an era now, and Delfin Lee would be the first to disavow any claim to holiness.

The accolades heaped upon him, Delfin Lee accepts with all humility, and considers them as challenges for him to do even better: “We feel honored (by the recognition). These will further inspire us to provide optimum services for the betterment of the lives of Filipinos.”       

As a Punto! editorial once concluded: “More than a field of dreams – remember that line, “Build it and they will come”? – Delfin Lee has made that cherished dream of every Filipino – to have a house of his own – come to full realization. And more – a home in a community befitting of human dignity.”

Fittingly then – even unbeatified and uncanonized and therefore without the reverential “San” before his name, Delfin Lee of Xevera is enshrined in every heart in every one of those homes.

xxxx

AH, the vagaries of fate! The man virtually revered atop a pedestal then languishes now in the Pampanga Provincial Jail.

Ah, the viciousness of politics! The man twice set to testify at the Binay “corruption” hearings at the Senate -- with advice from the Supreme Court at that! – barred at the last moment.

Ah, dura lex! How many TROs, petitions and other remedies have been issued, reaching the SC itself, still Delfin Lee has yet to have his day in court.

  

Flood politics

“VACATE YOUR homes, evacuate now, don’t put your families at risk.”

So appealed Gov. Lilia G. Pineda to residents living along the banks of the Pampanga River in the wake of Typhoon Lando last week. Even as Pampanga was spared the full brunt of Lando, and notwithstanding the residents’ resiliency to floods, the inundations being already part of their existence.

Still, the governor persisted, to the point of instructing mayors of the towns traversed by the Pampanga River to “reason” with their constituents and, if necessary, implement forced evacuation.

Pineda knew all too well that the torrential rains Lando dumped up north could only cascade as rampaging floodwaters to Pampanga, further downstream to Bulacan onto Manila Bay. Which, indeed, happened – submerging swathes of San Luis, Candaba, Apalit, San Simon, Macabebe and Masantol in Pampanga, Calumpit and Hagonoy in Bulacan. Necessitating massive evacuation, relief and rescue operations.

So as it was with Typhoons Pedring and Quiel in 2011, as well as the other typhoons and the southwest monsoon rains that hit Pampanga and Central Luzon, so it is now with Lando: The devastation to infrastructure and crops, the misery at the evacuation sites, the dead and the wounded, the depletion of the LGUs’ calamity funds.

“We cannot go on like this, at the approach and aftermath of every typhoon that comes our way,” Pineda said. “We need a mindshift in dealing with calamities – from instinctive reaction to pro-active pre-emption.”

Her take on the situation: Start with the geographical givens: the upper reaches of the Rio Grande de Pampanga from its headwaters in the Sierra Madre; its main tributaries, the Peñaranda and the Coronel-Santor Rivers in Nueva Ecija and the Rio Chico River in the Cordilleras and Cagayan; down to the Bagbag River and Angat River in Bulacan and the Candaba Swamp basin. Plus the ecological state of the forests and the mountains contiguous to the rivers.

Second in Pineda’s Pampanga River agenda is the inspection of all flood-mitigating infrastructures such as the decades-old setback levee, the unceasingly eroding  Arnedo Dike, the heavily silted Labangan Channel and the much ballyhooed Pampanga Delta Development Project River for their structural integrity, as well as current – no pun intended –  (in)effectiveness.

Third, a review of the myriad studies by government offices as well as international aid agencies undertaken on the Pampanga River and the utilization of the Candaba Swamp as containment area or reservoir. High time too to reassess the proposal to revive the defunct Pampanga River Control System which was tabled in the Central Luzon Regional Development Council in the wake of the habagat-caused flooding in 2012.    

Fourth, a summit on the Pampanga River among concerned government agencies such as the National Economic and Development Authority, the Department of Public Works and Highways, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office, the National Irrigation Administration, the governors of provinces traversed by the river, the Japan International Cooperation Agency and other aid agencies, with “flood specialists” as resource persons. With a program of action – “measurable, time-bounded, applicable, funded” – as its end-result.

Basic but a well-defined agenda there, Governor Pineda laid out. For a start, she has asked that it be a talking-point priority in the coming meeting of the Regional Development Council.

With the sun up and the floodwaters fast receding though, the urgency of Pineda’s agenda may just wane and, as the usual case, be relegated to the RDC backburner.

To keep the tides of enthusiasm rolling, so to speak, here’s an unsolicited advice to the governor from this observer: Make the Pampanga River a national issue in the 2016 elections.

The millions of votes from Central Luzon make a tsunami any presidential or senatorial candidate will be most happy to be inundated in.

It will certainly help – tremendously – to convince aspirants to national positions that with over one million votes in Pampanga, Pineda is re-electing unopposed.    

Family feud

"I AM ready. I will face even the war in Iraq."

Not so much the mayhem in Saddam’s devastated domain as the masked  swashbuckling Zorro shall Macabebe Mayor Annette Flores-Balgan face in her last run for the mayorship. 
Zorro being the moniker of Leonardo “Bobong” Flores, himself a many-termed mayor, and, yes, elder brother of Flores-Balgan.
Rural legend holds it was Flores that – constrained by the term limits – groomed his beloved sister to take her turn at managing the family heirloom that is the Macabebe mayorship bequeathed upon him, as firstborn, by the patriarch Domingo Flores.
Apung Inggo impacted in the national consciousness in the 1970s with his picture – wearing shades and surrounded by heavily-armed bodyguards – landing in the slim volume Revolution from the Center by the Great Ferdinand Edralin Marcos, with the all-too-telling caption “Central Luzon mayor rules from a circle of guns.”  
Twice though the Flores stranglehold of the Macabebe municipio slipped – in the immediate aftermath of the EDSA aberration, and in 1998 with the debonair Rico Laxa besting Flores-Balgan in her first ever run.
Laxa though called it quits at the end of his single term and opted for an appointive post as head of the National Housing Authority at the time of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Whence the mayorship was handed to Flores on a silver platter. Which he, in turn, dutifully passed on to Flores-Balgan, true to dynastic tradition.
So, what gives now that with one more turn at the bat, the mayora is already being yanked out of the game?
He heard the people crying out for their champion Zorro, “ang tagapagtanggol ng naaapi" and he has no recourse but to come to their succor, Flores said.
"I told her to love the poor and the residents of Macabebe, but what happened is all the residents here became afraid of her," furthered Zorro, er, Flores.
Riposted the sister: "I am not a traditional politician. I want the people here to be progressive that's why I am bringing progress to the town."
And in a further dig at her elder’s tested ways: "Anong gusto nila, bigyan ko ng P50 araw-araw ang mga tao pagkatapos ng term ko pulubi pa rin sila? O bigyan ko sila ng edukasyon pagkatapos ng apat na taon kahit saan sila pumunta may kakayahan sila? (What do they want, that I give them P50 daily only to remain paupers after my term? Or that I provide them with education so that after four years they will have the capability, wherever they may go)." A teacher by profession, Flores-Balgan headed the family-owned Colegio de San Lorenzo in Macabebe.
A proxy war, the siblings are starting to wage against each other, some wag I heard saying.
Look who’s behind Flores – the Bondocs, 4^th District Rep. Rimpy and elder sister Ana York, his successor turned predecessor at the House.
See beyond Flores-Balgan and find the Pinedas, Gov. Lilia and Vice Gov. Delta.
Even before the 2016 campaign starts, not a few already foresee the 2019 gubernatorial contest as between Delta and Rimpy. Hence, the necessity of positioning the pawns in the chessboard at this early. Anyways…    
Notwithstanding political differences coming to the head, elder brother and younger sister have not severed familial bonds as yet.
Flores-Balgan said she never felt as sad in her whole political life as in facing her own kuya as rival, feeling so sorry that at his age he still had to go through the wringer of an election campaign: "At 73, he must be enjoying the serenity of life, like having coffee every afternoon." As was Flores’ wont around the coffeeshops at SM City Pampanga.
Flores added his own ad misericordiam argument to his running: his daughter fighting stage 4 breast cancer in the United States, to whom his “response to the call to serve anew” is dedicated. 
Beyond the attendant hypocritical civility and farcical drama, this is no simple sibling rivalry though. Of big bro merely wanting anew the lollipop little sis now holds. Make no mistake: This has blown up to some intra-family feud.
Note that Flores’ running mate is his very own son Vince. And Flores-Balgan has in her council line-up her own re-electing daughter with that all-too-fragile feminine name: Mary Claire Therese, but better known as the bad-boyish Bembong.  
Clear as day, the future of Macabebe politics laid out for all to see there. 
So Zorro rides again…off into the sunset, finally. Flores-Balgan is most surely hoping.
Now can rise the son though, and Flores-Balgan cannot be caught napping, propping her own daughter to meet any and all challenges her macho relatives can, may, and surely will, throw.
The dynastic wars have only just begun.  How Apung Inggo must be turning and tossing in the family mausoleum.

 

 

Boking Agonistes

EMBARGOED PRECISELY as a front page story in today’s issue is this piece with my tagline.   
Clark airport dev’t powers

Mayor Boking’s nth rerun

MABALACAT CITY – This time, it is the full development of the Clark International Airport.
Thus, Mayor Marino “Boking” Morales anchored his “first” re-election bid as city mayor on the country’s future premier international gateway.
“In 2010, Mabalacat cityhood served as our campaign platform which we
delivered – by the grace of God and the sovereign will of our people – in 2012,”
Morales said at a press conference following the filing of his certificate of
candidacy last Friday.
“In our 2013 campaign, it was our city primed as ‘Makati North of Manila’ which is now gaining ground with the influx of investments not only in the Clark Freeport, but in our city itself,” the mayor furthered, taking special care to mention that the freeport lies within the territorial jurisdiction of Mabalacat which the Americans “took from us but now we have taken back.”
Mayor since 1995, Morales cited the “substantial increase in territory from the
Clark reverted lands” as one of the qualifications “legalizing” his re-election bid.
“With the expanded territory, our status as a city and promise as the next Makati, the next step can only be the full operation of Clark airport for the fullness of the potential of our beloved Mabalacat as premium engine of regional, if not national, development,” expressed the bullish Morales.
“And we are in the best position to catalyse that development,” he hastened,
vowing to “lobby, to push for the Clark airport wherever it would take.”
Out to derail Morales’ umpteenth bid for the mayorship are Pampanga 1st District Board Member Crisostomo Garbo, former Mabalacat City Vice-Mayor Noel Castro, businesswoman Pyra Lucas and two virtual unknowns, Mario Suba and Willy Feliciano.
Last week, Garbo appealed to Morales not to seek re-election “as a matter of
conscience,” citing his two-decades at the mayor’s seat as “already too long, that he should give way to the younger generation.”
Morales invoked the truism “the voice of the people is the voice of God,” noting that it is “not by (his) power that he remains mayor but by the power of the people.”
Political observers here said with five other candidates for mayor, Morales “is
already assured of victory.”
“The fight is reduced to second place, as Boking’s vote will hold sway against the anti-Morales votes that would be divided into three at the least, for the known contenders,” said a local college professor who asked for anonymity.
ALAS, IT was not meant to be.
Four days after filing his COC, Morales himself wrote kaput to his umpteenth re-election bid: “I’m withdrawing my candidacy for city mayor. My wife Niña has filed her COC after I submitted my withdrawal from the mayoralty race. I already served my cabalens for the past 21 years with humility and dignity and I want to thank the people of Mabalacat for giving me the opportunity to serve them.”
Vox Dei finding manifestation here?
Behold, then, Morales – humbled and ennobled by his long years of service to his constituents – coming to the blessed embrace of some epiphany mayhaps even akin to Saul’s at Damascus’ Gate. Wow!
Said he more: “To smooth out everything, I agreed to what the party wanted. Like they say: Nung eka biyasang mamintu kareng matwa keka, pota mapapa ka, yaku eku bisang mapapa (If you don’t want to follow the wishes of your elders, you might be damned, I don’t want to be damned).”
Indeed, an epiphanized Morales there invoking Exodus 20:12 – “Honor thy father and thy mother that thou may have a long life in the land that Yahweh has given thou.”
As well, Ephesians 6:2-3 – “Honor thy father and thy mother. And this is the first commandment that has promise: that thou may be happy and enjoy long life in the land.” Wow! Wow!
But, didn’t he say he acceded to “…what the party wanted”?
Ayayay, can’t help but sense the voice of some lesser god there. And see not so much a beatific Morales as one Boking Agonistes.
Or do I need to pray harder?   

 

Presidential route

VARIED IS the road to the presidency.

In the past, it was the well-defined way of the House, the Senate and the Vice Presidency, not necessarily the full route though, thus:

Manuel L. Quezon, member of the Philippine House of Representatives and the Senate.

Sergio Osmena, speaker of the House and vice president to MLQ.

Manuel A. Roxas, speaker of the House and senator.

Elpidio Quirino, Ilocos Sur representative and vice president. 

Carlos P. Garcia, Bohol representative and vice president.

Disodado P. Macapagal, Pampanga representative and vice president.

Ferdinand E. Marcos, Ilocos Norte representative and Senate president.

Joseph E. Estrada, mayor, senator and vice president.

Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, senator and vice president.

Benigno Simeon Aquino III, Tarlac representative and senator.

Not all who took that path though reached the presidency, thus:

Salvador Laurel, senator and vice president.

Ramon Mitra, senator and House speaker.

Jovito Salonga, Senate president.

Raul Roco, congressman and senator.

Manuel Villar, House speaker and Senate president.

Those are but the names that flash on instant recall. 

Not even being “only a heartbeat away from the presidency” is sure warranty of  priority, of the equity of incumbency, thus:

Fernando Lopez, vice president to Elpidio Quirino and FM.

Emmanuel Pelaez, vice president to DM.

Salvador Laurel, vice president to Cory.

Teofisto Guingona, vice president to GMA,

Noli de Castro, vice president to GMA.

Watch out, Jejomar Binay.

Shades of wisdom there from John Adams, who upon being elected vice president to George Washington exclaimed: "My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived."

The Department of Defense portfolio served as an expressway for two:

Ramon Magsaysay who arrested the Huk rebellion. (“The Guy” was also Zambales representative twice).

Fidel V. Ramos who remained Cory’s choice after he lost in the LDP convention and formed his own Lakas-Tao party.

Following their footsteps, Juan Ponce Enrile and Renato de Villa, miserably lost their way to Malacanang in 1998; and Gilberto Teodoro in 2010.

Presidential endorsements come into play here: Ramos, on Cory’s support, won. Teodoro, backed by GMA, lost.

PNoy-endorsed Mar Roxas, beware.

A totally different trail was blazed by housewife Corazon C. Aquino. It was paved and smoothened by the blood of her martyred husband Benigno Jr.

It was the sainted Cory’s turn to die, peacefully, in 2009. Notwithstanding the absence of any of the high-drama attendant to Ninoy’s death, hers had enough emotional gravitas to set the path for her son the BS in 2010.

Now, for the third time in this Republic, necropolitics looms as the fastest way to

the presidency.

But for the death of her adoptive father who was “cheated” of the presidency in 2004, Grace Poe would have remained an obscure teacher in the country of her choice, the United States of America.

Look where she is now.      

Destiny, ‘tis often said of the presidency. Yeah, as in death destines the choice of presidents? The highest probability there, given the current crop of candidates, the freaky ones excluded.

So whatever happened to the long-held truism: “Character is destiny”?

How Heraclitus must be turning in his grave.

  

Soc's sermon

“CORRUPTION IS the biggest cross that is being carried by the Filipino.”

Pope Francis’ statement in Malacanang last January reverberated anew in Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates “Soc” Villegas, president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines.

In his interview by the intrepid Tonette Orejas at the sidelines of the Obra Sagrada ecclesiastical art exhibit at SM City Clark last Saturday and published in Sunday’s Philippine Daily Inquirer, the prelate renewed the Church’s call for the electorate not to vote for candidates tainted with corruption.

Quoted the Inquirer of Villegas: “Sinners can be forgiven but you cannot forgive the corrupt because they do not ask for forgiveness. They are not bothered by their actions. Let’s try to keep the Pope’s message in mind…

“If we say that corruption is one of our nation’s deepest scars and heaviest cross, and if candidates already have a history of corruption, let’s think twice, thrice, a hundred times before voting for them.”

Surveying the field of presumptive and prospective candidates from Villegas’ perspective, we are moved to ask: Who then can we vote for?

Aye, the archbishop’s sermon veritably takes off from last Sunday’s gospel centered on Matthew 19:24-25: “And again I say unto you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. When his disciples heard this, they were exceedingly amazed, saying, ‘Who then can be saved?’”

Continued the prelate: “To win is easy. The questions are, ‘Will this bring me close to God? Is this for the sake of the country?’”

Readily comes to mind here the epistle of Dolphy to his fellow actors and celebrities: "Hindi problema ang tumakbo. Hindi problema ang manalo. Kaso kapag nanalo ako ano ang gagawin ko? (Running is not a problem. Winning is not a problem. But if I win, what will I do?)"

The Catholic Church will not endorse any candidates, so stressed Villegas, defining the role of the Church thus: “The Church is not a political troublemaker. The Church is not a social troublemaker. The Church is a conscience troublemaker. The role of the Church is not to disturb society, not to disturb politics. The role of the Church is to disturb the conscience so that a disturbed conscience that is attuned to the norms of the Lord will be able to improve society. Change begins with the transformation of conscience.”

The impact of the archbishop’s words on the candidates is too early to tell. Immediate though is the effect on Ms. Tonette: that “conscience troublemaker” bit most pronounced in his Inquirer story the next day. So I deem.

Headlined Lapid won’t challenge Pineda in Pampanga, the story implies some timidity, if not cowardice, on the part of Sen. Lito Lapid in avoiding a face-off with Gov. Lilia G. Pineda.

Even as it expressly states Lapid’s failings as governor – his son Mark’s too – in the quarry collection, to wit: P115.6 million in 11 years of their administrations, as against Among Ed Panlilio’s P611.1 million in his three years at the post, and Pineda’s P799.2 million in only her first term. Still eight months to the end of her second term, the Nanay has already turned in some P1.6 billion from Pinatubo’s vomit.

It does not take a rocket scientist to see corruption and smell graft in the Lapids’ numbers. Still, so kind of Ms. Tonette to skip mention of Lapid’s distinction, er, infamy, of being the only Pampanga governor ever to have been suspended on graft and corruption charges rising out of the quarry scam. That was in 1999.

As to the Lapid son, I can only wonder how Liberal Party-Pampanga chair Among Ed took Mark’s being official senatorial bet of LP’s Daang Matuwid Coalition. Given that the once-Reverend Governor initiated graft charges against his predecessor precisely for the incredibly low quarry collections.

Of Lapid’s Senate stay, Ms. Tonette’s story carries the decision of the Ombudsman recommending the filing of a graft case against him in connection with the overpricing of P5-million worth of fertilizers, pointing out that “The money came from a P728-million fertilizer project that turned out to be a scam during the administration of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.”

Stressing: “This was the eighth graft case filed in the Ombudsman against Lapid since 1995 and the second case to reach the Sandiganbayan.”

No tumbling for the Bida out of the Janet Lim-Napoles PDAF web. Reported Ms. Tonette: “Whistle-blower Benhur Luy had said his files contained entries for Lapid’s cash advances worth P1,132,500 on Dec. 20, 2002; March 23, 2003; and May 7, 2003.”

Cited too: “An Inquirer report in July 2013 said P20 million from Lapid’s Priority Development Assistance Fund also went to the towns of Teresa, Baras and Pililla in Rizal province.”

All in the Lapid family now, with wife Marissa, serving three years of probation for cash smuggling and reporting violations in the United States. “The sentence came 15 months after the Department of Homeland Security found $40,000 more in her luggage when she entered Nevada in November 2011.”

In effect, Ms. Tonette’s story makes both bold strokes and fine lines on the portraiture of the candidate Archbishop Villegas warned the electorate against.

Still, as I have been repeating in every election: E mu tatasan ing camulalan da ring Capampangan.  

Throwing critics

SHOULDN’T YOU be afraid?

Asked a worried friend soon as Ashley Manabat and I sat down on a table at Krispy Kreme, SM City Clark for our post-editing coffee and doughnuts.

Afraid of what?

Of the two of you being thrown at the Clark Development Corp. for your criticism of Tugade.

What nonsense!

Nonsense? But it’s in your paper today. You admit now to publishing nonsense?

The guy shoving to my face the front page of a crisp copy of Punto! Oct. 5-6, 2015 issue.

Under the headline Ex-CDC prexy rallies Tugade and Clark execs reads the second paragraph: Levy P. Laus, chairman and CEO of the Laus Group of Companies (LGC) rallied CDC officials led by Arthur P. Tugade to continue developing Clark despite critics thrown at them. (Underscoring here for clarity of what he meant.)

Whoaa!

No way the highly esteemed Sir Levy could have been anything as sadistically  homicidal as to suggest critics be thrown at the CDC.  

“Critics” clearly mistyped for “criticism” there. Watch your praise releases, CDC Communications Dept. You’ve just smeared Sir Levy’s gentle-as-a-lamb persona. 

As a policy, we at Punto! do not edit press releases or any unsolicited articles sent to us. If only to avoid any charge of spinning the stories. We just publish them as is, unabridged, unedited with the corresponding taglines to show where they come from. The lapses in syntax and grammar, even in logic, the sole responsibility, hence to the utter shame, of the sender.

But for that typing gaffe, the story is no nonsense and more, with its appeal to the mind and heart. I can almost see the Tatalonian Toughie melting into tears with Sir Levy’s soothing counsel.

“Critics will always be critics,” Laus said.
Laus, also Chairman Emeritus of Pampanga Chamber of Commerce and Industries cited CDC and its officials for various development and investment projects being implemented amidst criticisms.

“It’s very challenging to make everybody believe that what you are doing is right. There will always be opinionated people who will say it’s (decisions) wrong, but nonetheless, I think it’s eventually the end that would justify how these decisions are made,” Laus said.

Sir Levy knows – and feels – whereof he speaks. Having been there, done that, and suffered this. As CDC president and CEO. Where Tugade may be getting pins and needles now, Sir Levy got arrows and spears.

“Credit-grabber” he was tagged when Texas Instruments materialized during his watch, the taggers claiming it was his immediate predecessor Tony Ng, “along with a high-profile team composed of Trade Secretary Peter Favila, SCADC Secretary Ed Pamintuan, CIAC’s Chichos Luciano, CDC Chair Roy Navarro, PEZA’s Lilia de Lima and Energy Secretary Raphael Lottila,” that brought the blue chip company to Clark.

Aetas

In his desire to uplift the state of the indigenous people in the Clark area, it was Sir Levy that effected the Joint Memorandum Agreement between the CDC and the Aeta tribal chiefs mandating the state-owned firm’s virtual “control” over undertakings in the Aetas’ ancestral domain.

Instant was then 1^st District Rep. Tarzan Lazatin’s opposition to the JMA, accusing the CDC of deceiving the Aetas into signing the JMA by giving out about a dozen Mitsubishi L300 FB vans to tribal leaders which subsequently became the source of enmity within the tribes as the chiefs took them to be their personal possession.

“Good only at selling cars.” So Cong Tarzan called Sir Levy referencing to the said vans which CDC took pains in proving they did not come from the Laus’ Car-World showroom. 

More telling, Cong Tarzan declared: “The sharing of 80 percent to the CDC and 20 percent to the Aetas on the lease of some 10,000 hectares as mandated by the JMA is most unfair, if not iniquitous. It should be the other way around, the Aetas being the owner of the land and the CDC merely a broker.” And promptly took the issue to the House.

Just a few months back, the JMA came to haunt Tugade himself when it surfaced in the CDC row with Aeta leaders over the sewerage facility project planned along the Sacobia River.    

Aside from assailing Sir Levy for “making Aetas squatters in their own land,” Cong Tarzan also accused him of “reversed racism” on the bidding for the True North project, reportedly awarded to a Korean firm to the prejudice of some other Filipino bidders and one other claimant.
Indeed, as the Punto! story related, during his time as CDC president, Sir Levy  coined the statement “the future of Clark is so bright that we need to wear shades.” Which instantly earned public ridicule when it was appended to a formal photograph of Sir Levy with the Board, vice presidents and managers of the CDC wearing sunglasses inside the heavily draped cavernous OTS Building. “CDC gone blind,” so it was tagged.   

‘Car Bonanza Display’

Arguably, the worst misery inflicted upon Sir Levy in the whole of his CDC presidency came with his flagship project that was the Makati-inspired central business district (CBD) planned to locate at the periphery of the civil aviation area. “A most stupid idea,” so it was called, for “locating Makati right at an airport.”    

Again, it was Cong Tarzan along with the Pinoy Gumising Ka Movement that led the opposition to the CBD, mocked as “car bonanza display” to connect it to the Laus’ business of auto dealership.   

The unkindest cut on the CBD issue though came from neither Cong Tarzan nor the PGKM. It was delivered by Sir Levy’s patron herself, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

“GMA thumbs down CBD” screamed the banner of Pampanga News. The insult added to the injury unlost, aye, blatantly manifest, given the paper being owned by Sir Levy himself. Unsurprisingly, indeed, expectedly, Pampanga News ceased publication shortly thereafter.

Some ominous warnings for Punto! there? No, Sir Levy does not own this paper. It’s just a thought, silly.

Back to the current story: Laus commended CDC for the sustained progress in Clark.
“We see how Clark is progressing, we see how Clark is developing and many things have stabilized inside the Clark Freeport,” Laus said.

No surprise in the laudations here. Astute as always, Ashley Manabat said Sir Levy “has not only all the reasons, but the obligation” to aggrandize Tugade and the CDC.

One. He is a now a locator at Clark.

Two. He used to be CDC president.

Three. He shares the same Bedan stock, if not streak, with Tugade.

Need we still explain?

Oh, lest we forget: Ashley was editor of Pampanga News at the time of its demise.   

Yeah, no explanations needed. Throw the critics and this newspaper at CDC altogether.

     

Selling Mimosa

LAST WEEK, the Clark Development Corp. was reported to have initiated the privatization of the Mimosa Leisure Estate.

CDC President-CEO Arthur P. Tugade disclosed there were “at least nine foreign and local companies” that signified their interest on MLE and participated in the pre-qualification of bidders. He, however, refused to name the firms, only assuring: “Doon sa siyam na nag-participate, halos kalahati locally-situated. At sa background nila, hindi naman maliliit, yun bang tinatawag nilang reputable at may character sa negosyo.”

No, the Tatalonian Toughie did not invoke any confidentiality clause in keeping the identities of the bidders sub rosa. It’s just one more instance of his wont to do the opposite of what he professes: transparency at the CDC.

We learned from sources though that among those who participated in the pre-bid were Robinsons, Filinvest, San Miguel Corp., two Korean firms, and one “client” of former CIAC head honcho Jose Victor “Chichos” Luciano.    

Anyways, Tugade noted: “Matagal nang pina-privatize ang Mimosa. Yung mga nakaraan, karamihan mga foreign companies,” even as he expressed hope that this time it would be for real: “Sa aming obserbasyon po… at sana tama yung obserbasyon namin baka matuloy na ho ang privatization, pero mahirap naman magsalita nang tapos kasi may proseso pa rin yan.”

Tugade’s caution-tempered optimism is well-founded.

There have been five attempts to privatize MLE since the CDC took control and management of the estate in 1998 – by virtue of a court resolution enforced with direct orders from President Estrada – following the non-payment of dues to the state-owned firm by its original owner Mondragon Leisure and Resorts Corp. of Cory Aquino’s Tourism Secretary Jose Antonio Gonzalez.

Win-lose

Twice, winning bids were announced only to be subsequently declared as failures: in 2006 with a Korean firm, and in 2008 with the William Gatchalian-owned hotel operator Waterfront Philippines Inc.

CDC rejected Waterfront’s request to extend the deadline for compliance with payment dues of: P450 million upfront payment for the going concern value (GCV), P160 million advance minimum guaranteed lease, another P160 million for the security deposit, the performance security equivalent to five percent of P50 million of the total investment commitment, and the balance of P52.5 million for GCV.

The demand of the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. for Waterfront to first pay the arrears of MLRC, Mimosa’s previous operator “killed” the Gatchalian-led firm’s winning bid, claiming that it would put the financial viability of the whole project in jeopardy.

In July 2011, CDC President-CEO Felipe Antonio Remollo announced a “transparent” public bidding to privatize Mimosa to be scheduled soon as the terms of reference were finished, possibly the following month.

Said Remollo: “There have been five failed biddings before and we do not want another one, so we have to be careful, calculated, and transparent.” Sounds  much like Tugade now, eh?

Practical reasons

But that November, Remollo announced that no Mimosa privatization would take place, citing “practical reasons.”

“We were asking a P250-million yearly rental but no one took it,” according to  Remollo, even as he junked an earlier bid of some P160 million as yearly rental with a one-time payment of P1 billion.

Remollo’s “practical reasons” were MLE’s three major interests turning in profits: Holiday Inn Resort-Clark with P170 million, Mimosa Casino with P70 million, and  Mimosa Golf course with P20 million. Annually.   

“We will not bid it out (anymore) because the CDC will earn more and the one-time payment of P1 billion will be easily earned after a few years,” said Remollo. Instead he would just engage “experts in management” to handle the three major entities of the MLE, so they’d even earn “more and better.”

Yes, it can’t get any more practical than that. Thus, ended the quest for Mimosa privatization.

Until Tugade’s turn at the auction block. 

The terms of reference: P800-million minimum upfront payment, P5-billion commitment investment for the development of the estate, Mimosa Casino excluded in the deal, CDC to handle any labor dispute that may arise with the estate privatization.

Sounds just fine, looks even better than Remollo’s un-privatization practicality.

There’s just some concerns, three easily come to mind.

One. The banks with billion-peso exposure in Mimosa contracted at the time of Gonzalez. Aren’t some cases filed somewhere regarding this apparent default in payment?  

Two. Didn’t Gonzalez himself file some cases all the way to the Supreme Court seeking to regain Mimosa?

Three. The Mimosa golf club members – they who paid millions in shares, they who stuck it out with their course through thick and thin – totally left out in the terms of reference.

The banks and Gonzalez are well beyond my ken.

As for the Mimosa members, something I wrote here at the time the Korean firm won – and lost – the bid for the estate in 2006 has found relevance anew. Abangan ang susunod na kabanata. Tomorrow.        

Kimosa

HERE’S A take out of the Mimosa golf club members’ sadness and dismay over their exclusion from last week’s pre-bidding conference relative to the privatization of the estate as bannered in yesterday’s issue.

It’s a throwback to 2006 when a Korean firm did win the bidding for Mimosa and how the members reacted. From my column Free Zone in the long-defunct Pampanga News, June 15-21, 2006:

  

Prejudicial pride

KIMOSA. The playful pun says it all.
The invasion of the Mimosa Golf and Country Club by hordes upon hordes of Korean tourists – from south of the 38th Parallel we all presume – that began with the first flights of Aseana Airlines to Clark is finally over.
About to begin is the occupation of the Mimosa Golf and Country Club by citizens of the Land of the Morning Calm, NTM Jin Hung having won the bidding for Senor Don Jose Antonio Gonzales’ bank-pawned, CDC-sequestered crown jewels.
Ay caramba! Isn’t there an appeal of the Castilian to recoup his estate now pending before the Supreme Court? What if he wins? No, he won’t win?
Madre de Dios! The CDC Board of Directors has a gift of prophecy, manifest in their awarding Mimosa to NTM Jin Hung. That Antonio Ng and company did not even bother to wait it out shows that they are most certain that there is no sliver of a chance for the Don to reacquire his once enchanted fiefdom.
Sinverguenza! The paisano parian Antonio spiting the heredero Senor Don Antonio! Que pasa? Es verdad, malo esta nuevo orden del mundo.
Indeed, a new world order obtains at Mimosa, again Kimosa, to be more apt.
The lamentations of the Mimosa members suffering discrimination – more economic than racial – in their very own turf can make a case for violations of human rights.
A golfer who looks like Mabalacat Vice Mayor Crisostomo Garbo complains of being deprived the services of his favorite caddy girl. Why? She has reserved herself for Korean golfers. How come? A sober Ninoy Aquino makes a bogey to a smiling Benjamin Franklin on any day at the green. Yes, Garbito, Koreans tip in dollars not in won. As if you did not now.
Ah, this you know, as well as that other guy who is a spitting image of Bernie Cruz. The common request at the caddy shack by Korean golfers: “I want my caddy last night.” As I have yet to hear of night games in any of the three courses at Mimosa, I can only assume that that referred to a night-before short putt in a nineteenth hole. That is the caddy’s own, dummy.
Under CDC supervision, Mimosa has been ruled by Koreans. Rudely, claimed one local golfer whom I mistook for Tony Mamac. With NTM Jin Hung in full possession, greater discrimination at, if not a total shut out from the course is no baseless apprehension among the locals.
Thus, the Indios Bravos to the rescue of Filipino pride and honor. Senator Lito Lapid, Angeles Mayor Tarzan Lazatin and Mabalacat Mayor Boking Morales spearheading calls for a probe of allegations of rigging in the Mimosa deal.
The alleged disqualification on mere technicality – fifteen minutes late – of the other bidder, Avenue Asia, an American firm reportedly, smacked of pre-bid preference for the Korean bidder and prejudice against all others? The three officials believed so.
I don’t know how efficacious is Lapid’s proposal of a consortium of local businessmen-golfers to lease – not buy, for sheer lack of capital – Mimosa from CDC. I don’t know how the local golfers will take this.
What I do know, hearing it from a great number of them, is that Mimosa has to be taken out of the hands of CDC to save it from further ruination.
“For five years, we have been advocating for the privatization of Mimosa. This is to restore the course to its former glory as one of the best in the Asia-Pacific region, where even the likes of Tiger Woods came to play,” Mamac, the president of Mimosa members, stressed.
He lamented the mismanagement of the course by CDC after it took over from Gonzales owing to the latter’s financial woes with his creditor banks and Pagcor.
“Mimosa served as CDC’s milking cow. The sad thing is CDC did not take it to pasture, so to speak, failing miserably to maintain, much more upgrade it,” Mamac added.
Like other members, he believed that privatization will increase the value of Mimosa shares which at the time of Gonzales rose to as high as P1.5 million per share. Today, according to Mamac, it is down to a low of P200,000.
What if only the Koreans have the financial means to bail out Mimosa?
Pride takes the backseat then, Mamac said. “So long as our rights as members are upheld.” So there.
Still, the Senator wants his probe. While at it, may we suggest that His Honor expands his investigation to what we see as the creeping Koreanization of Angeles City.
While we have always welcomed foreign investors, there is something different with the Koreans. This is no racial prejudice. But a great many locals have observed that there is little benefit from the Korean invasion here.
Koreans patronize their own. They shop in Korean grocery stores, dine in Korean restaurants, wine in Korean nightclubs, stay in Korean hotels, relax in Korean spas, buy Korean cars. Very soon, they could be importing Korean GROs too. It won’t take long and we shall have a Korean mafia here too.
Ang maghahari-hari dito, kahit na sa krimen pa, dapat Pilipino. Ain’t we proud of ourselves?
xxxxx

POSTCRIPT. NTM Jin Hung won in the bidding for Mimosa with an offer of P1.6 billion, but the bid was withdrawn after the firm failed to comply with “upfront payments” according to CDC at that time.

Can’t help but feel some sense of déjà vu in the current bid to privatize Mimosa anew.

Can’t help but see the prescience of this column in the current of events at the Korean community in Clark and the city.    

Star-complexed

Candaba to see ‘Coco-Daniel’ tandem in 2016 elections

I had to do a double-take on Sun-Star Pampanga’s headline last Tuesday.

First persons that came to mind were Coco Austin, rapper-actor Ice-T’s bootylicious wife once arrested on a Florida beach for wearing a string bikini that left nothing to the imagination, and Daniel Craig, aka Bond, James Bond.

But reason dictated there was just no way for Hollywood going the route of avian migration to the wetlands of Pampanga.

On to the story then:    

CANDABA -- Mayor Rene Maglanque disclosed recently that his running mate for the 2016 polls is Councilor Michael Sagum.

"Inilalapit ko na po sa inyo ang gusto kong maging katulong sa mga darating ko pang proyekto para sa inyo, ang ‘Daniel Padilla’ ng ating munisipyo, Michael Sagum," said Maglanque, who uses the moniker "Coco Martin," in a recent event held here...

Ah, the reference pala is to the current matinee idols of local cinema. Okay. Let Maglanque indulge himself with his fantasies. No matter how freakingly wild.

But come to think of it, what’s in Candaba that makes its politicos arrogate to themselves screen monikers? No matter the littlest likeness the former have with the latter, indeed, the absolute absence of any resemblance between them.

If Maglanque is Coco Martin, then I am John Lennon – at least for the likeness of our steel-rimmed round eyeglasses. Maybe, even Russell Crowe as long-haired journalist Cal McAffrey in the political thriller State of Play.

The cineaste Ashley Manabat conceded though that Maglanque is a doppelganger to another Martin of old Tagalog movies – Marfil, the SkyFlakes-faced punching bag of FPJ and Erap in their heydays. 

Yes, Candaba mayors hold this distinction of impounding the names of famous actors as aliases in electoral campaigns.

Before “Coco” Maglanque, there was the loquacious John Lloyd – after Angelica Panganiban’s beau – in former Mayor Jerry Pelayo.

“John Lloyd is coming.” Many a tarpaulin announced all over Pampanga’s 4^th District in the 2013 election campaign. The electorate’s disappointment in seeing the balding Pelayo instead of the Biogesic-pushing Cruz, amply compensated though by the then House-seeker’s wit, his strong stage presence, and – not the least – the raffle prizes attendant to his sorties.  

“John Lloyd” was enough for Pelayo to win – in only one of the eight municipalities in the 4^th District. Not in his hometown at that, but in tiny Sto. Tomas.

The charisma of the reel John Lloyd failing to rub off on the real Jerry Pelayo, most evidently there.

To be imbued with the charisma oozing from those names in lights is the irresistible drive of local politicians who append these monikers to their persons. Believing their potency in getting the vote.

Which sadly is not the usual case.

The only politician in Pampanga I know who has parlayed the screen name to a series of poll victories is Marino “Boking” Morales, forever mayor of Mabalacat, starting with a 3^rd class-town now transformed into a bustling component city.  

Boking showbizzed himself as “Gabby Concepcion” after his first attempt at the mayorship miserably failed in 1992, despite the support of President Cory Aquino as well as rival presidential bets Fidel Ramos and Ramon Mitra, despite an enormous war chest, despite the INC bloc vote.

In 1995, the electorate took to Boking as Gabby, easily finding similarities in their being “pogi” with a string of lovelies, past and present, for trophies: as in Sharon, Grace and Jenny, for the latter…I invoke my right to be silent for the former.

It helped too that Boking as Gabby made the complete contrast, aye, the perfect protagonist, to his aesthetically-challenged perennial antagonist. Yes, he who never retreated from nor surrendered to Boking unto his death.

Yeah, it helps to be handsome to win elections. It is ridiculous though to tack a handsome name to an unhandsome face. I am not implying anything on “Coco” Maglanque here.

But even the iconic “face only his mother could love” can – and does – win elections too. No, I do not reference the BS in Malacanang here. Rather, I speak of the now dearly lamented Tirso G. Lacanilao, three term undefeated mayor of Apalit.

Tirso amassed immeasurable political stock out of ridiculing his self-professed, publicly-acknowledged ugliness. In his first run for the mayorship in 1998, his posters were defaced by his rivals with “PANGIT” in bold red/black scrawls. That inspired him to overhaul his campaign strategy with his unhandsomeness as core issue.

His spiels at the hustings:

Sinasabi po ng aking mga kalaban na ako ay mukhang kabayo. Mga sinungaling po ang mga iyan. Kayo na ang mismong nakakakita, hindi ako mukhang kabayo, ako ay mukhang tsonggo.” (My rivals say I look like a horse. They are liars. As you can well see, I don’t look like a horse. I look like a monkey)
Matatapang po ang aking mga kalaban at sila ay inyong kinatatakutan. Ako po ay hindi natatakot sa kanila, sa katunayan sila ay aking hinahamon. Kung talagang sila’y matatapang, sige nga magpalit kami ng mukha.” (People are terrified of my rivals, but I am not. If they are really that fearsome, I challenge them – to trade their faces with mine.)
“Ako po si Tirso G. Lacanilao. Ang ibig pong sabihin ng G ay guwapo. Ang spelling po nito ay g-a-g-o.” (I am Tirso G. Lacanilao. G stands for handsome. It is spelled stupid.)
“Y Tirso mayap ya, maganaka ya pa, andiyang matsura ya.” (To the tune of rap: Tirso is good, he is kind, even if ugly.)       

He never tasted defeat in Apalit.

But then there’s only one Tirso. Now there’s Maglanque assuming unto his person Coco.

Is it me, or did I hear someone whisper “Loco”?